Fall semester 2023

Something is wrong with the planet, and it has to do with us humans. This insight challenges the sciences, the arts, politics: How can the crises be thought and represented, how can futures be imagined? With a focus on literature (cli-fi, science fiction, nature writing), the course develops a historical-critical perspective on the present and history of the ecological crisis.

The guiding question is: What do the transitions mean for the production of literature and knowledge? And how does our conception of an environment in transition affect our readings? Another thread leading through the seminar is the question of the possibilities and limits of (popular) scientific and artistic methods. How are futures imagined, in science, in literature?
We read and discuss selected research literature (literary and science studies) together with fiction and non-fiction from the 20th and 21st century (e.g. Dorothee Elmiger, Amitav Gosh, Frank Herbert, Franz Hohler, Max Frisch, Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia E. Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Anna Tsing).

Participants will develop an understanding of the history and present of literature in the Anthropocene and its relationship to science, politics, technology, economics, and society. To this end, we combine textual analyses with perspectives from the history of knowledge. Students apply this knowledge by learning to develop their own points of view and to contribute them to discussions, papers, and essays.

While in modernity it seemed very clear what knowledge is and which technologies of knowledge are to be preferred - namely the scientific ones as they have developed in Europe - this certainty has been rendered in need of revision by global, feminist and ecological perspectives. One of the consequences has been that the history of science has been, if not replaced, then outshone by the history of knowledge. Meanwhile, the situation has been complicated by the fact that scientific knowledge is engaged in a political and epistemological struggle for authority and legitimacy with actors with very different interests. How can history of knowledge and/or history of science respond to this situation without giving up the legitimacy of scientific knowledge and at the same time meeting the demands of a pluralistic approach to knowledge?

The aim of the seminar is to familiarize the participants with the current debates on the importance of knowledge.

According to a myth, the ancient Greek philosopher Democrit dissected animals, because he was in search of the seat of the soul. Current neuoscientists use neuroimaging techniques like functional magnetic-resonance-tomography in order to localize cognitive and emotional qualities in the brain. Between these two dates lies a history of 2500 years, in which the relationship between the mind and the brain has been defined in various ways. Starting with ancient and medieval theories, the lecture will have its focus on modern theories from the nineteenth century onward. I will discuss essential issues in the history of the neurosciences such as localization theories, the neuron doctrine, reflex theory, theories of emotions, neurocybernetics and the importance of visualizing the brain and its parts, but I will also include works of art and literature.

By the end of this lecture, students should be familiar with essential positions in the scientific and philosophical treatment of questions relating the mind to the brain. It should also become clear that some of the most relevant problems in current neurosciences have a long history.

The seminar deals with the economic and social conditions of scientific research from 18th to 21st centuries: from "gentleman science" and industrial research, academic positions and extra-institutional research, the exclusion of women from academic disciplines, scientific research under the conditions of emigration and discrimination to current phenomena such as "entrepreneurial science" or academic precarity. Who had the time and means for scientific research at a certain moment in history? Which forms of funding and research organisation led to science becoming a profession, and whom did they exclude?

Students learn about the history and present of the economic and social conditions of scientific work. They learn to critically reflect on the economic conditions, requirements and discriminatory effects of scientific institutions and of research funding.